Smart devices are moving towards the foldable screen era: they can be folded and bent in various ways

There is no doubt that foldable screens are considered to be the future development trend of mobile phones. Recently, with the launch of Samsung Galaxy Fold, Huawei Mate X, and Motorola Razr, "foldable screen" mobile phones are getting closer and closer to us. In addition, more smart devices are also transforming into "foldable screens" in various forms, and consumer electronics are entering the "foldable era" as a whole.

Who is driving the foldable screen trend?

Just like full-screen mobile phones, foldable screen mobile phones were pushed onto the historical stage this year, also with the joint efforts of users and manufacturers.

On the user side, the folding screen further increases the area of ​​the phone screen. From the experience point of view, the benefits of this folding screen design are unquestionable. When the screen is opened, the phone turns into a tablet, bringing a larger screen visual experience. When the screen is closed, it can become a traditional phone and easily fit into a pocket. With the development of mobile Internet, mobile phones focus more on office and entertainment attributes. When the screen size of single-screen mobile phones has reached its limit, the advantage of folding screens in screen size becomes more and more prominent.

On the manufacturer side, the driving force is to achieve differentiated competition through foldable screens. In recent years, the smartphone industry has entered a highly mature period. With the basic software and hardware already relatively mature, mobile phone manufacturers have begun to seek differentiated competition in the design of mobile phones. Therefore, we can see that in 2018, full-screen mobile phones ushered in explosive development. In addition to special-shaped screens such as bangs screens, water drop screens, and punch-hole screens, there are also full-screens created by mechanical structures such as sliding covers and lifting screens.

After the full-screen mobile phone, mobile phone manufacturers turned their attention to folding screens, which can increase the screen area by nearly 40%, while also achieving the integration of mobile phones and tablets. It is regarded as one of the effective means to solve the screen-to-body ratio problem.

Different folding methods

The emergence of foldable screens has made people's eyes light up and stimulated people's imagination. However, for mobile phones, which have extremely small internal space, achieving screen folding is not just about folding the screen. Space, battery, sealing, durability and other aspects need to be considered comprehensively. Therefore, based on the manufacturers' understanding of foldable screens, foldable screen mobile phones have multiple folding forms.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold adopts an inward folding solution. The advantage is that the screen can be better protected on the inside, but the disadvantage is that an extra screen is required, which not only increases the production cost, but also has a further negative impact on the battery capacity.

Huawei Mate X adopts an outward folding solution, which saves a screen compared to Samsung's solution, but faces greater difficulties in bending inward. After all, the screen is more fragile when stretched outward.

Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Fold and Huawei's Mate X, which fold left and right, the Motorola Razr adopts a vertical folding design. When unfolded, it is a 6.2-inch, 21:9 OLED screen. Compared with the folding screen design of Samsung and Huawei that transforms from a mobile phone into a tablet, the RAZR simply makes the phone more lightweight when stored.

No matter which folding solution is adopted, the under-screen hinge design is an unavoidable difficulty. The function of the hinge is to ensure that the folding screen maintains the flatness of the screen when it is opened and closed. The traditional non-jointed hinge design will leave a gap after folding, which increases the thickness of the body to a certain extent. The dual-hinge mode can minimize the degree of bending of the screen after folding to increase the service life, but it will further increase the cost. Even with the traditional hinge design, the cost is currently high. Taking the Samsung Galaxy Fold as an example, the cost of the flip hinge module is between US$150 and US$200, which is nearly 65% ​​higher than the iPhone.

Tablets and laptops are coming one after another

2019 is known as the "first year of foldable screens". In addition to foldable screen mobile phones, more foldable screen devices including tablets and notebooks have emerged.

At Microsoft's new product launch last month, Surface Neo and Surface Duo also entered the folding screen field. Among them, Surface Neo is an ambitious product. It adopts a dual-screen design with two separate 9-inch screens that can form a 13-inch workspace. The keyboard also uses peripheral configuration, and Windows 10X can better adapt to the free switching between the two screens.

The dual screen is more durable than the folding screen. The screen of the Microsoft dual-screen device is covered by Gorilla Glass. Compared with plastic, glass is indeed more fragile, but when we close the Microsoft dual-screen device, the screen is inside and the metal shell outside can protect the screen.

Lenovo's latest ThinkPad X1 is a foldable screen convertible notebook that can be transformed into tablet, book or clamshell modes. In addition, this product can be used with a stand or docking station to connect a keyboard and mouse for other productivity operations. In other aspects, the ThinkPad X1 foldable screen computer uses a 13.3-inch 2K resolution OLED display.

At the just-concluded IFA-2019, TCL brought a 10-inch three-fold screen "Big Mac" prototype. It uses a double hinge and can be folded in two different directions and can be folded into three parts. After folding, the "phone" unfolds into a 10-inch large tablet. Folding a panel underneath can turn part of the screen into a numeric keyboard, and use the other part as a display.

Is it time to buy buy buy?

Based on users' natural preference for large screens, foldable screen phones are undoubtedly the next technological trend in the development of mobile phone screens. However, foldable screens are not an evolution of previous generations of screens, which simply increase the size and screen-to-body ratio. They put forward higher requirements on technology, such as the service life of flexible screens, hinge technology, and battery life. If you buy them when the technology is not yet mature, there is a risk of being a guinea pig.

In addition, the price of foldable screen products is also a hurdle. In the early stage of application, the price of new technology must be relatively expensive. The licensed version of Samsung Galaxy Fold is priced at 15,999 yuan, and the price of Huawei Mate X is 16,999 yuan, which is equivalent to the price of two flagship phones. Therefore, there is still a long way to go before foldable screen phones can be popularized.